Managers destroying GAA, claims Connacht GAA president Gerry McGovern

Connacht GAA president Gerry McGovern has slammed inter-county managers for exerting excessive pressures on players, claiming they are “destroying the association”.

In his address to the province’s annual convention tonight, McGovern touched on a number of topics such as putting a cap on inter-county expenditure and changing the administration structure of the organisation, which he believes is no longer fit for purpose.

On the topic of managers, he said: “The influence of team managers who are putting training regimes in place from November till the time the team exit the All-Ireland series is destroying the association.

This has a detrimental effect on our players, to the extent that players are not enjoying their game anymore.

“Why are so many top intercounty players opting out? Why are young and prospective players declining the offer to be part of the inter-county panel? They feel that the exhaustive commitment placed upon them is not worth it.

“The ESRI report published in 2018 gave clear indication that modern GAA players were been pushed too hard by respective county team managers. The players themselves are saying ‘scale it back, Commitment, time, and professional standard setting, has gone too far. Enjoyment is leaving the game.’ Others are asking ‘that it becomes more enjoyable again and less of a non-stop chase’.”

Referring to the fixtures issue as “the Brexit of GAA”, McGovern supports the fixtures review taskforce’s option of four provincial conferences of eight: “This proposal would introduce an equitable competition where every county would have the same number of games to qualify for the latter games in the series.”